A shared wireless acquisition core for cortical and peripheral recordings in freely moving mice

Abstract

Experiments in freely moving mice often require simultaneous recording of cortical, muscle and movement signals, but adding channels and peripheral sensors increases headstage burden and acquisition complexity. We developed an eight-channel wireless headstage that records six cortical channels and two neck-electrode channels, together with synchronized acceleration. Reassigning electrodes enables cardiac recording with the same electronics. The 13*11*3 mm board forms part of an approximately 1.2-g head-mounted assembly, with the battery carried separately on the back. With inputs internally shorted, root-mean-square noise was 0.176V over 0.5-100 Hz. In four mice with chemically induced seizures, recordings resolved distributed cortical activity and animal-level spectral changes. Subject-dependent evaluation of the seizure detector yielded an overlap-based event F1 of 0.893 +/- 0.022. During pseudo-online replay, inference-software processing took 46.394 +/- 0.363 ms per update. In a separate cohort, recordings revealed distinct coherence patterns associated with movement and social behavior, highlighting potential as biomarkers of behavior-related neural activity. Together, these results demonstrate concurrent cortical, muscle, and movement recording through a common acquisition chain, with electrode reassignment extending the same hardware to cardiac recording.